


Always & Again

by kayelem



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-04 13:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3070556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayelem/pseuds/kayelem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once she was a priestess in the service of the Pantheon. Once she was a liberated slave. Once she was a warrior – he had planted her tree in the Emerald Graves himself. And then, she was lost and silent, and he finally slept. </p>
<p>Love knows no boundaries, least of all does it bend to the trappings of time, but each time he loved her, he had always watched her die. </p>
<p>
  <i>Told in vignettes</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This is an angst fest. And also probably the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written in an attempt to make something NOT hurt. I think I just made it hurt more. 
> 
> READER BE WARNED: There are heavily veiled references to who and what Solas really is throughout. So if you don't know and don't want it spoiled, beware!

She wore a face that she had no right to wear, and it wrenched something inside of him to see it like this. Contorted into a mask of pain, scratched and dirty, sweat beading on her brow. But blessedly, it was bare, no Vallaslin marked her. She must have been an outsider, even among her clan – or had she joined them from the city? Given the callouses on her hands that spoke to years of hard training, he doubted it. Why would she risk the stigma of remaining a “child”?

Was it even possible that she remembered?

… Did he dare even hope that she remembered?

He had been studying the anchor for days, trying to understand how it came to pass that it had been given to _her_ of all people. Why was _she_ always destined to be thrust into his life time and time again? Was it just some cruel joke that fate played on them? Each time brought together by something bigger than themselves, each time they loved each other more than he deserved.

And each time, he watched her die just as she was surely dying before him now. He couldn’t let that happen, not after he had just found her again after all these lifetimes. But the anchor was persistent, trying its level best to consume her and for all his arcane knowledge, the only thing he had been able to do was slow it down. Perhaps if she interacted with one of the rifts, the anchor would take some of its magic back into itself and stabilize.

Solas looked from her hand to her face, his heart aching. He knew it was a terribly self-indulgent thing for him to do, but his hand seemed to move without his conscious consent, reaching out to brush his thumb along the angle of her cheekbone, almost reverently. “Where have you been hiding from me, _ma vhenan_?”

Oh, how he had searched for her when he had woken, both the fade and the waking world. Solas walked the old roads that he had not traversed in lifetimes,  found their old hideaways that were now nothing more than crumbling ruins, hoping beyond hope that he might hear and feel the beckoning call of her unique soul. Even the spirits that had been his friends for an age had not been able to assist him and, disheartened, Solas resigned himself into thinking that perhaps her own spirit had grown weak and weary of waiting for him. Perhaps she had finally found the rest that she deserved.  

When she and Cassandra met them on the way to the forward camp, Solas had his answer. She hadn’t been hiding… _she_ wasn’t there at all. There was nothing familiar about Lavellan aside from the face she shared with one he had loved more than anything. Her spirit didn’t recognize his as it always had before.

It was for the best, he told himself even as his heart constricted. Better that there was nothing to remind him of her. Perhaps this time he could protect her. Perhaps this time she would live. Perhaps this time fate would be kind to them.

Still, Solas didn’t know what was worse: realizing that she wasn’t the same, while he had not changed, or knowing that he loved her even so. 


	2. II

**II**

It was too much for Solas to hope that he wouldn’t gain her attentions, but Lavellan was frustratingly determined. Whether she was truly his lost beloved or not, _something_ still drew her to him. But he was just as determined as she, but while she desired to be closer, he kept his distance. He would not be her downfall once again as he always had been. Solas didn’t think he had it in him to hold her in his arms as she breathed her last yet again.

But still, Solas relished each time Lavellan sought him out and spoke to him of his journeys in the fade, and he regaled her with his stories – ones that he had quietly hoped would sound familiar to her because long ago, longer now than he cared to admit, she had been his companion for many of them. He told himself that it was enough that Lavellan chose his company time and again, that she asked him to accompany her to pick herbs, or sat quietly beside him and read while he meditated.

When he had asked why she so often sought him out, Lavellan had shrugged and replied, “I’m not sure, really. But, your presence is calming, it quiets my mind while everything around us is in chaos. You feel… familiar to me, when I talk to you it feels less like I’m actually getting to know you and more like… I am remembering who you are.”

Solas thought his heart might have stopped when she’d said that because how could she have possibly understood how _true_ it was? How could he have explained to Lavellan _why_ she felt that way? That not only was he familiar to her, but in another time, a different existence she had loved him more than anyone ever had.

Part of her still slept though, that hidden, dormant part of her that remembered him. But it was waking, slowly and surely, dripping from the cracks and waking Lavellan to everything her soul had forgotten. She would not be able to contain it forever, eventually the foundation would shatter, the tidal wave would be too much, and Solas would recognize the person looking back at him once again.

He tried not to want it as _fiercely_ as he did. If Lavellan didn’t remember him, then he could protect her better, there was still parts of him that he could keep distant. But if she _did_ remember him, Solas knew that he would come back to her as surely as the ocean came back to the shore. He was homesick for the feeling of her soul that made his chaos feel less like a hurricane.

In the back of his mind, there was a whispering, traitorous thought that told him it would never truly be enough, not when he had once known the feel of her lips against his, the rake of her nails along his shoulders, and the caress of her sighs in his ear. It would never be enough when she had given him a quiet stillness that felt like home, safe. But his desire for her was only dampened by his overwhelming determination to see her survive through this.

And then… their enemies came to Haven, to Lavellan. The Elder One had come to take her from him. 


	3. III

**III**

Solas could scarcely remember the last time he had fought so fiercely.

No… no, he _did_ remember. The Exalted Plains, wasn’t it? The last time that he had watched her die.

She was a warrior then, a leader, an Emerald Knight that fiercely protected their people. And he, her Knight’s Guardian that fiercely protected _her._ He had begged her not to fight in that final battle, but to leave with those of their people that fled the fighting but refused to submit to the shemlen and had taken to wandering. But she wouldn’t hear anything he had to say to her on the matter. He knew she wouldn’t, hardheaded as she always was, but he couldn’t help himself – he had to _try_ at least.

_If I am to die,_ she’d said, her voice full of the stubborn determination that he loved and loathed in equal measure. _I will die doing my duty to our people. I will fight! So run if that is your desire because I will do no such thing, I will not hide and I will not run!_

But how could she have actually thought that he was going to leave her side? And she didn’t die doing her duty to their people, she had died foolishly protecting him. A shem had come from outside of his peripheral, he only saw her as she threw herself between him and the oncoming blade. She had enough strength left to kill the human, but she fell into him after and he sank to the blood soaked ground with her body draped in his arms and her life slipping slowly away. He didn’t have enough mana left to heal her,  though not for lack of trying. He couldn’t let her die like this, not for him… because it was _always_ for him.

_Ma vhenan, stop_ , she had whispered, pulling his bloodied hand away from the wound.

_Why must you continually do this!?_ He had demanded, his voice wrecked and strained.

She had smiled, blood ran from the corner of her mouth and he could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. _Do you honestly believe that I could live in a world where you don’t exist, ma lath, even for a moment?_

_And what of me, vhenan?_

_You will… find me again, as you always… do._ It came out breathy and stilted. The last vestiges of her strength was draining from her, her eyes dilating in and out of focus.

_To watch you die… **again** , as I always have?_

Her hand lifted and he felt her scarred knuckles brush lightly against his cheek. _Then end this cycle, ma fen. Sleep and meet me… in the Beyond._

Her last shuddering breath, the last stuttering beat of her heart had ripped the most wretched scream from his throat, and with it a shockwave of such ferocious power that it laid to waste everything within two hundred paces of him. Her carried her body to the Emerald Graves, dug her resting place with his bare hands, and planted her tree in the freshly turned dirt. He used his magic to nourish it, help it grow, poured all the love he held for her into it, until it stood tall and proud amongst the thousands of saplings around him.

Standing in the shadow of the leaves, he imagined, if only for a moment, that she was there with him still. That the rustling of the leaves was the breezy sound of her laugh, that the caress of the wind against his face was the brush of her hands.

Then, finally, he slept. 


	4. IV

**IV**

 

“Solas!”

He didn’t throw up his barrier fast enough. And then Lavellan was before him, her hands on his shoulders, her body bucking forward from the impact of two arrows to her back. A sound that was halfway between a scream and a cry forced itself from his throat, and his arm came around her, supporting her, as he cast a wall of ice between them and archers, trusting Iron Bull and Varric to finish them.

“No,” he breathed, watching as her face twisted and knotted in pain. “Not again, please.”

“Again?” she almost laughed, her forehead pressed against his shoulder, but he could still hear the excruciating pain in her tone. “When was the last time I jumped in front of an arrow for you, _lethallin_?”

They had a moment’s reprieve from the attack and so Solas swept her up into his arms as they retreated to the Chantry. He couldn’t quell the slight tremor of his hands, slicked with her blood as he pulled the arrows from her back and healed the wounds, hating himself a little more for the new scars. Lucky for both of them that Harrit was a skilled blacksmith as her armor had prevented the arrows from going deep enough to do any real damage. Solas could not have endured losing her so soon after finding her again.

And Solas knew then, watching Lavellan as she shrugged back into her armor and made the Commander promise her that he would lead the people of Haven safely through the hidden tunnel, that she _wasn’t_ different at all. She was still as brave as she had always been, as kind as she ever was, and to his vexation, as self-sacrificing as he remembered. Perhaps the explosion at the Temple had simply taken more than just her memory of what happened at the Conclave.

When the Elder One descended on her, when the dragon separated them, Solas saw more than he heard Lavellan telling them to go, to leave her. He struggled against Iron Bull and Varric with everything he had, but the two of them had still managed to get him into the Chantry before Inquisition soldiers barricaded the door. There was nothing they could do for Lavellan now, they told him, except pray that she miraculously survived.

When the mountain rumbled and shook, and the snow began to bury Haven under its unforgiving weight, Solas folded to his knees. His soul was in a violent turmoil – _how_ could he have left her? He had always, always, _always_ been there she died. He had always made sure that in those final moments she knew that she was loved dearly by no one more than he. Solas had _wasted_ away his time with her in the vain hope that if he kept Lavellan at arm’s length, perhaps it might not hurt as much when he eventually lost her as he always did.

A foolish hope made by an even more foolish man because it did hurt. It hurt like a dagger between his ribs, like water in his lungs, so sharp, and suffocating, and all-consuming that Solas wondered why he dared love her at all.  In the purest expression of grief, Solas found himself cursing the humans’ Maker to the depths of the Void. If the people believed so whole heartedly that Lavellan was The Herald of Andraste, then why had their god not protected what was their only hope of salvation?

Hours later he heard the horn, and Solas scrambled from the tent he had been sharing with Varric, his heart beating so hard against the caging of his ribs that he was certain it was going to pound right out of his chest and into the snow. The Commander was trudging through the knee deep snow, down into the small valley where they had made their camp, but it was the unconscious bundle in his arms that commanded Solas’s attention. Lavellan looked so _small_ held against Cullen’s broad human frame, wrapped in his cloak, shaking from the cold – Solas could hear her teeth chattering. Lips blue, her cheeks and nose were red from the harsh mountain cold, tendrils of her hair frozen, snow settled on her eyelashes.

“Is she…?” Solas trailed off as he stepped forward.

Cullen nodded, the relief on his face obvious. “Cold, but alive.”

He almost dropped to his knees a second time.


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has left Kudos/bookmarked/commented. It's nice to know I'm not the only one suffering from an overload of feels! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this little story of mine!

**V**

To Solas’s complete and absolute lack of surprise Lavellan took to the title of Inquisitor like a fish to water. The yoke of leadership was one that, no matter what life she led, had always suited her and she carried with grace and wisdom. What he had been surprised at, however, was how quickly and enthusiastically the humans rallied to her, pledged their loyalty to someone who, in another life, had been a slave to them; and in the next, one of their most ardent enemies.

But, he digressed, as he was the only one among them who remembered such things. It didn’t matter now, and she had never carried the ghosts and trappings of her past lives in to her present one. She never allowed her past victories, or his past failings to chain, or mold, or define her new life. For that, he was immeasurably grateful.

He and Lavellan were the only constant, never changing things from one life to the next. She, because her immortal soul would never truly rest until it could rest with his, and he, because his body wasn’t truly mortal. A cruel hand that fate had dealt them, some would say, to be brought together and then torn apart time and time again. Solas was cursed to watch her die and die again, then walk alone and wait until he felt her soul flare and be reborn into existence once again.

To his mild annoyance there were now a number of things that demanded Lavellan’s attentions and Solas found that she spent less and less time with him. He tried to ignore the bitter taste that her absence left in his mouth because with her new title came new responsibilities, and she couldn’t spend her every spare moment wiling away the time with him. He told himself that it was for the best that they weren’t spending as much time together, even as his heart railed against their distance, and thrilled with every glance or smile she spared his way. Lavellan still went out of her way to check on him, say hello, ask him how he was faring that day even if moments later she was called away. But she would always lay her hand on his arm with a warm familiarity and promise to speak later.

Finally, Solas couldn’t stand the distance anymore, their fleeting conversations were not enough to tide him over. He had resolved to spirit her away for an afternoon, but when he knocked on the door to her quarters and entered, Solas found that she was furiously packing.

“You’re leaving?” he asked.

She spared him a glance and a nod. “Yes, I have to go to Crestwood, meet with Hawke’s Warden friend.”

… Why hadn’t he known about this? Then, crushingly, it occurred to him. “You weren’t planning on asking me to accompany you?” Inwardly, Solas cringed at the wounded tone of his own voice.

Lavellan stopped and her whole demeanor seemed to deflate. “I want you to come, _lethallin_ , but Blackwall _is_ a Warden, Hawke is _Varric’s_ friend, and Dorian needs to get out of Skyhold, ever since I ordered Alexius’s execution he has been so melancholy that I am surprised he hasn’t summoned his own personal rain cloud for the sake of theatrics.”

Solas wanted more than anything to dig in his heels and demand that she take him with her, but Lavellan was never one for being told what to do, and his stubborn nature was matched only by her own. So he had nodded, relented and said, “I understand, _da’len._ ”

It was worth it to see her smile at him the way she did, to see the sudden warmth that she regarded him with, so genuine and lovely. Instead, he contented himself with staying as she finished packing, listening intently as she told him more of her directive in Crestwood.

All too soon for Solas, Lavellan tied the strings of her pack and swung it on to her shoulder. “I’ll return in a few weeks,” she’d said with a small, twitching smile. “You won’t even notice I’ve gone.”

 _That is unlikely_ , he’d thought. Solas would feel her physical absence in the depths of his bones. The atmosphere in Skyhold would seem bleak and dreary without her to brighten it for him. When Lavellan made to pass him, Solas caught her by the arm and pulled her to a stop. Her breath caught as his hand moved into the hair behind her ear, and he tilted her head forward until her brow met his. He watched her eyelashes flutter shut, felt her shuddering exhale across his lips and it nearly broke his resolve because _why_ had he been trying to distance himself from her when her nearness filled him with such warmth.

“Stay safe,” Solas muttered.

Lavellan’s hand closed around his wrist, her thumb brushing over his pulse. “Don't I always?”


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've changed the Fade scene just a bit... you know which one I mean.

**VI**

 

Solas hadn’t intended to seek her out in the fade, not really, but the few weeks in Crestwood had been extended to a month and the missives that Lavellan was sending from the field were not nearly as comforting as he thought they should have been. Indeed all they did was make him worry even more. He didn’t trust Dorian, or Varric, or Blackwall to protect her to his level of satisfaction and Solas wouldn’t have put it past Lavellan to jump in front of another arrow, or throw herself on a blade for any of them.

He was just going to check on her. He wasn’t going to waltz into her dream, he wasn’t going to change it, wasn’t going to alert her to his presence. Just a quick check to make sure that she was safe, to ease his troubled mind.

Solas repeated it to himself, like a mantra, as he traversed the fade, the distance between where he dreamt and she slept shrinking with each step he took. But when he found her in the midst of a nightmare, his curiosity got the better of him and it was all too easy for Solas to breach the barrier of her dream. It colored the fade around her in darkened shades of grey, and Solas felt a sense of foreboding as he walked through her dream.

She was running through the town in a panic, trying to warn the people of the town about something, but every one of them ignored her as if she wasn’t even there. Then there was a great, whining, grinding noise and every head turned to the dam in equal amounts of shock and horror. Lavellan screamed for everyone to run, but it was too late, the floodwaters too great, and no one heard her. She watched as the water rushed over the town and the people drowned, until she was standing in the middle of the submerged square as waterlogged bodies bobbed and drifted in the murky depths.

In the waking world, Lavellan jolted awake so suddenly that it _threw_ Solas from her dream.

He waited in the fade for her to fall back asleep, remolded the area to look like Skyhold so that she might be somewhere familiar when she entered the fade next. He was considering the mural he’d been working on in the rotunda when he felt her behind him.

“There you are, _lethallan,_ ” he said with a small smile as he turned.

She must not have realized that she was back in the fade because all Lavellan did was smile back at him. “Do you have some time, Solas? I thought we could spend some time together.”

“Whatever time I have is yours, but come, let’s go somewhere else.”

He took her by the hand and led her out of the tower, and it didn’t even occur to her that it should have led back into the main hall of Skyhold, but instead they were stepping out into Haven, and the Breach that she’d sealed weeks ago was still burning green in the sky. He took her down into the dungeon where she’d spent the first few days after the explosion, explaining to her how he feared that the mark would consume her, that she was never going to wake up. Solas swallowed down his shame as he told her that he had resigned himself to flee, when she and Cassandra had found them and she had sealed the rift with a mere gesture.

“ _It seems you hold the key to our salvation_.”  

Lavellan tilted her head, still smiling at him. “It was hardly a gesture, I seem to remember that you grabbed my wrist…” She looked down at her left arm, her brow furrowing. “You were… shaking, I didn’t understand why.”

“I… felt the whole world change in that moment,” he admitted. But that wasn’t entirely true. He had been so relieved to see her there, awake, _alive._ The feel of her wrist enclosed in his hand irrefutable proof that she was standing before him. Lavellan was lucky that he had only been trembling and not burying his face into the crook her neck, that he had not tried to crush her to him as if he was trying to climb inside of her and live inside of her skin, and make a home out of her bones.

Her eyebrow raised and there was a teasing light in her eyes that made his chest feel tight, made his stomach feel like it was achingly empty all of a sudden. “Felt?” Lavellan echoed, and it wasn’t hard to miss the change in her tone.

Oh no.

No no no.

That look was one that he knew all too well.


	7. VII

**VII**

 

… This couldn’t have been happening. She couldn’t be trying to wake him up, not now, it wasn’t even dawn and he had hardly slept.

_Da’len **please**_ , he groaned, his voice so groggy and full of sleep. Why, why, why was she awake at this hour?

The bed jostled again as she shook him, more forcefully this time. _You promised!_

_I promise I will take you tomorrow, if only you would let me sleep today._

_You are a **god**. How much sleep could you possibly need!? _ Her voice was so full of child-like ire that it almost made him smile. He knew the look that was on her face even with his eyes closed, the downturned pout of her lips and the impatient pucker between her eyebrows.

He felt his eyebrow arch, eyes still closed. _If **someone** had not kept me awake half the night, perhaps I would not need rest today._

_I do not recall hearing you complain_ , she’d replied, haughtily, almost nonchalant. _In fact, I seem to remember just the opposite_.

If she was trying to make him blush, she was going to have to try harder than that. When he had first taken her to his bed she’d been inexperienced, but remarkably eager to learn and an even quicker study. He had thought that he would eventually tire of her as he had all those who came before, but he found that was not the case. He longed for her presence when she was away, found himself thinking of her when his mind was idle. She was the only lover who had _shared_ his bed, rather than just be taken to it.

_Yes,_ he’d agreed easily. _Which is why I now require sleep._

_You promised that you would take me to see the sun rise over Arlathan **today**!_

_Arlathan will still be there tomorrow_ , he told her, turning onto his side.

If someone had told him years ago that he was going to fall in love, he would have howled with arrogant laughter until he was blue in the face. If someone had told him that she would be from the servant class, indeed a priestess, marked with the _vallaslin_ of her patron goddess, no better than a glorified _slave_ , he would have called for their head. But then he saw her, met her, spoke to her and he found that she was… more than he could have imagined.

She loved him more than he had ever dreamed anybody could. She tempered him, tamed the beast inside of him that raged at the troubled state of their society. Her quiet strength helped him master his chaos that had so often threatened to burn him alive. She had showed him how desperately the people needed him and that fire inside of him.

_You cannot pretend that it does not bother you simply because you are afraid of what you might do if you allowed yourself to feel that fire I know is in you!_ He remembered her screaming at him, her voice stretched so thin that it sounded as though it might tear. _You must burn, higher and brighter, and as fast as you can. The People need you, they **need** that fire and nothing will destroy us faster than a dying flame!_

She  had called to him to lay his suffering at her feet, bring her the rattling roar of his broken bones. So he had. He had given her the riots that warred in his heart so angry, wild and raw. He had been so certain that it would be too much for her carry, because she could not possibly have been everything he had needed and _more_ , but she took it all with such grace and told him, _I am not afraid of your darkness, vhenan._

He was drawn from his musings when he felt her hand on his shoulder, turning him onto his back yet again. He didn’t acknowledge her as he felt her side of the bed shift, and dip, and jostle until her weight settled over his waist. Opening an eye, he found her straddling him, her hair falling around her marked face in long, soft waves. However, the entire scene was ruined by the mischievous half smile curling one corner of her mouth.

_What, may I inquire, do you think you’re doing, da'len?_

_Nothing_ , she’d replied, her voice light and full of innocence.

He didn’t believe her, but still he nodded and made a humming noise in the back of his throat before throwing his arm over his eyes, intending to fall back asleep if only she would let him.

Then he felt her slender hands on his stomach, followed shortly after by warm kisses that trailed up, over his navel than across his chest until she reached his neck. When her lips brushed over his, he tried, in vain to ignore her and the way she gently plied his lips apart with her tongue. But he could never truly turn her away and it was something that she knew all too well because when he replied in earnest, she was smiling against his mouth.

He propped his knee up, pushing her nearer, desperate to bring her closer to him as she buried her hands in his long hair and pulled. When he tried to turn the heated kisses into something more, she abruptly pulled away, supporting herself on her hands above him. She tilted her head forward, looking to the wide space between their bodies before she looked back at him, her eyes alight with self-satisfied humor.

_It seems you’re awake **now** , ma vhenan, _she laughed, then before he could catch her, she leapt from the bed and strolled from their room humming to herself.


	8. VIII

**VIII**

 

“Felt?”

This was not what Solas intended when he decided to check on her in the fade. Lavellan was cleverly backing him into a corner, and his panic was growing with each passing moment. He had to maintain control, how had he allowed the situation to get away from him so quickly?

 “A… figure of speech.”

Lavellan laughed then, and it tugged at some dormant part him, lightened his soul if only for a moment. Her laughter was yet another fault line in his cracking resolve.  “You think I am unaware of the metaphor?”

Solas couldn’t deny her anything when she was looking up at him like that, her eyes so full of mischief and a wanton desire that made his throat dry. He felt his heart beating such a hard cadence against his chest that he feared she might hear it. “You change… everything,” he told her quietly. _You always have_ , he added silently.

He turned away from her then, intended to leave before things got more out of hand, but Lavellan stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He _should have known_ that she had her own ideas, but he couldn’t resist turning to look at her again and it still caught him off guard when he felt the whiswper of her lips against his. Solas knew that he probably should have been embarrassed by the sound that he made, but he didn’t have it in him to care as her hand curled around back of his neck.

When Lavellan pulled away, Solas followed, but she just smirked at him like she had gotten away with something dastardly and turned to leave. He nearly balked - how could she have possibly thought that he was going to let her get away that easily? Solas had gone so long without the taste of her and in that moment his resolve shattered with a violence that _terrified_ him.

Try as he may, Solas couldn’t ignore that dread that overcame him when he woke.

Had he doomed Lavellan yet again?

It gave him something to brood over for the next week at least. Perhaps because Lavellan didn’t remember him, his feelings for her wouldn’t doom her because, if she didn’t remember him was she _really_ the same person? It was a weak defense, Solas knew, especially when he thought back on the way she had kissed him in the fade. There was no uncertainty, no hesitation. Lavellan’s lips had moved over his with an aching sweetness and confidence that was only borne of familiarity.

When he heard the announcement that the Inquisitor had returned from Crestwood, Solas had thought he would have time before she came to see him. He thought that she would be tied up in the war room with her advisors for at least a few hours so that he’d have a bit more time to steel himself against the next time he saw her.

What he had not expected was for her to storm into his room like a house on fire. Solas took in everything about her as she devoured the space between them in a few short strides, pointedly ignoring the fact that she was limping just the slightest and the subsequent anger it ignited in him (he knew he should have gone with her!). There was a fierce, determined look painted across her expression, and fire in her eyes – Solas was distantly aware of the fact that _he_ had kindled those flames. Lavellan hadn’t even changed from her travelling clothes, he noticed as his gaze moved from the new cut across her eyebrow, to the bandages wrapped around her wrist.

He took a deep, steadying breath. No time like the present to practice his indifference then.

“Inquisitor, what can I do for --- mmph!” Lavellan grabbed Solas by the front of his tunic with a strength that surprised him, yanking his mouth to hers before he could finish.

Compared to this, their kisses in the fade seemed like cheap, pale imitations. Lavellan _took_ her kisses from him with bruising force, but Solas found that he didn’t mind one bit, burying his hands in her hair and tilting her face upwards so he had better access. He was belatedly aware of Lavellan backing him against the wall, and of him turning her so their positions were reversed, allowing him to lift her up and pin her between his body and the wall. Solas drank in her kisses like he was dying, and if he did indeed die in that moment it would have been happily. She felt just like he remembered, responded to him as enthusiastically as she always had.

When she finally pulled away from him, Lavellan was breathless, her chest heaving against his as she tried to catch her breath.  Solas thought that his heart might burst as she leveled him with a look that was full of want before she pressed her forehead against his.

“Real kisses are much better than fade kisses,” Lavellan told him.

Solas was inclined to agree.


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay on this! I work three jobs and they kicked my butt the last week or so. 
> 
> This chapter and the next are my attempt to deal with my displeasure over the "Protect Clan Lavellan" series of war table operations. As far as I'm aware there is only ONE way that your clan survives, the other ways either kill the clan entirely or leave them "scattered or killed". They were "scattered or killed" in my playthrough. What bothers me is that NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT! I mean, really? The Inquisitor just lost their clan and not even your love interest brings it up. And there are no follow-up missions (as far as I've experienced), shouldn't there have been an operation to bring the people who killed the clan in for judgment? SOMETHING?

**IX**

Stone walls provided for dreadful acoustics and even in the rotunda, the sounds of the goings on in Skyhold often reached Solas. Most days he could tune out the excitement of the castle, give himself some semblance of peace and quiet in the often boisterous environment. Other days it was harder for him to concentrate on the mural, such as when Lavellan was sitting in judgment of their prisoners because the tension of the gathered crowd always managed to seep through the doors and find him.

The day had been thankfully peaceful as the Inquisition had been waiting to receive word from Hawke and her Warden friend in the Western Approach. It was going to be a few weeks at least, but still Solas found himself relishing in the subdued nature of the castle. The majority of Lavellan's time was spent in the war room with her advisors, preparing for the eventual missive from Hawke and her Warden friend.

As the days passed, Lavellan looked increasingly hallowed and tired. It worried him, but she continually brushed off his concern and every time he tried to find out what was bothering her so, she staunchly ignored him. It was a logical conclusion to think that it was the upcoming assault on the Wardens that was bothering her, but she had never before allowed her duties to affect her.

It was the muffled sounds of yelling that drew his attention away from the fresco and though Solas knew that it was probably none of his business, curiosity had always been a weakness of his. He walked into the main hall of Skyhold to find Lavellan storming from the war room, her face red, eyes swimming with unshed tears, her advisors hot on her heels.

It was probably for the best that it was late, and the main hall was empty of the nobles and dignitaries that seemed to constantly mingle about the hall. It would do no good for the Inquisition's image for its leader to be seen stomping around like a high dragon.

"Inquisitor please, you must calm down!" Came Josephine's frantic call.

Lavellan stopped cold and turned. " _Oh, must I?_ I must be calm when you've just informed me that my entire clan has likely been killed!?"

Solas felt ice wrap around his heart at the strangled tone of her voice. So that's what had been bothering her, waiting to hear news of her clan. Crushingly, Solas understood why she had not trusted him with the nature of her odd behavior as of late.

"I trusted you!" she screeched, her voice tight and choked. "You told me that I could not go and assist them myself and I  _trusted all of you!_  What good are your connections," she turned a harsh glare to Joesphine, "your agents," this directed at Leliana, then turned her burning glare on Cullen as she continued, "or your forces if you cannot help one small Dalish clan!  _My clan! My family!_ "

She turned again and began to walk away, and knowledgeable as Solas was about her temperaments, he should have tried to warn Josephine from trying to interact with Lavellan further. But the ambassador followed in Lavellan's wake, "You cannot simply –"

Lavellan whirled around again, her face knotted, twisted into something dark. "What makes you think I want to hear anything  _you_  have to say to me,  _shemlen?_ "

Josephine's eyes went wide, her face flushed in sudden hurt. Solas was surprised as well because Lavellan had never treated the humans around her with anything other than friendship and civility. She cared for everyone with the Inquisition regardless of gender or race. The Inquisition and those who served under its banner had become her clan. And Solas had no doubt that Josephine had to deal with a number of unpleasant things that people said to her, and yet it was one slight elven woman that had nearly managed to dissolve the ambassador into tears.

He followed her out as she made for the stables, her hart stomping in irritation as it seemed to sense her discomfort and dark mood from across the yard.

"Where are you going,  _lethallan_?" he asked gently.

She threw open her hart's pen, throwing on his saddle. "To find what's left of my clan."

"Then allow me a moment to gather my things and I will accompany you," he told her.

What he was not expecting was for Lavellan to whirl around on him the way she had Josephine. "No. I am going  _alone._ Why would I want your company,  _flat-ear_ , when I know precisely how you feel about my people?" She snarled, all anger and disgust. "Truly, it must overjoy you to know that there is one less Dalish clan, floundering about like the ignorant children you believe us to be!"

He tried to ignore the tone of her voice and the way it wrapped around his heart and squeezed so tightly he couldn't catch his breath. She was in no condition to go anywhere, least of all by herself. He wanted nothing more than to gather her in his arms as he had times before, even if she would resist the embrace, until she calmed. She was hurting in ways that he couldn't comfort and once again, Solas was faced with all of his shortcomings in the face of her grief.

"How could you think that your pain would cause me joy in any way?" he wondered, quietly masking his own hurt at the visceral tone of her voice.

It was true that Solas held no love for the Dalish clans aside from that they were elves, his people. It was their beliefs that he took issue with because they had chosen to revere the darkest, worst parts of their history and somehow managed to twist and distort them into something positive. They blamed him for the fall of their empires, not knowing that he had only tried to help them, to free them from those of the gods who did not deserve their reverence.

She never answered him, just strapped on the emergency pack of provisions and mounted. She didn't wait for him to move out of the way and Solas nearly tripped over himself getting out of her path as she spurned the hart into a spirited gallop, shouting ahead to raise the gates. She never even looked back.

He met Leliana as she descending the main steps. "I've send birds to my agents in the field, they will know to watch for her."

"And I am certain she is aware of that. Believe me, Sister, if the Inquisitor does not wish to be found, your agents will not find her," Solas informed her.

In the meantime, Solas would look for her in the Fade.


	10. X

**X**

To Solas’s great irritation, he was forced to ask Cole for help with finding Lavellan especially considering that Leliana’s agents were failing miserably at locating their wayward Inquisitor.

It wasn’t that she was actively avoiding sleep, but rather, she was actively avoiding dreaming. Solas knew that Lavellan was sleeping in that way that hunters do, lightly, always aware of their surroundings and ready to jerk into full awareness at a moment’s notice, never deep enough to fully enter the Fade.

It meant that she was beyond his reach.

But the young man who was more spirit than human…

“ _Burnt hollowed out aravels, left like animal carcasses to rot, bones long picked clean. The lingering smell of smoke, and blood, and death. Creators, how did this happen? Broken, wrecked sobbing, each gasping breath sharp agony, like broken glass in her lungs. Forgive me, I should have been here._ ”

Solas turned sharply to where Cole had appeared perched on top of the desk. “You found her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her to come back?”

“Yes,” Cole replied in that distant way of his. “ _I’m sorry Cole, but I cannot return just yet. There’s something I must do_.”

Solas felt a shiver of anxiety roll through him. “What is she doing?”

Cole turned his head, the part of his ridiculous hat that sloped down, covering his face. “ _Rage like bile in the back of her throat, vengeance like fire searing through her. They will never see me coming…_ She wouldn’t have wanted me to tell you that…”

Solas blinked and Cole was gone before he could ask the spirit-boy another question.

Solas had it half in mind to pack his things immediately to seek out Lavellan, but the chances of reaching her before she did something rash was unlikely. And if he was entirely honest, he really had no concrete idea of where she had gone. So once again he found himself in the dismal situation of waiting, growing more annoyed as the days passed, and the tensions in Skyhold mounted the longer their Inquisitor was missing.

When Leliana finally received a bird that informed her that an agent had spotted the Inquistor heading in the direction of Skyhold, it seemed that the whole keep breathed a sigh of relief. And within a few more days, the announcement rang through Skyhold that the Inquisitor was coming up the path to the main gate.

Solas tried to swallow down his anger with her, tried to tell himself that she had acted out in grief, but it was to no avail. His thoughts were dark and clouded with anger at Lavellan for having acted so foolishly and rashly, for putting herself in such danger and for being so far out of his reach that he would not have been able to help her if she had needed him.

But he stopped short on the main steps, his anger melding into confusion and knotting his expression together as Lavellan’s hart eased to a stop. People were stopping what they were doing to watch her now, murmurs moving through the crowds like an ocean wave. His heart beat a panicked cadence as she raised her head, met his gaze, and he saw her face sullied with Elgar’nan’s markings.

_What has she done?_ Solas asked himself as he watched her reach forward and untie something from the saddle horn.

Lavellan swung down from the saddle, tugging hard on the rope that she had untied, and stumbling from behind the hart came a human, dressed in the finery of the nobility, looking a little worse for wear but otherwise unharmed, his wrists bound together by the rope Lavellan held.

“What has she _done!?_ ” Josephine gasped behind Solas.

He could only guess that this human was the Duke of Wycome, spitting obscenities at the gathered crowed as he demanded why they allowed a “knife-ear” to treat him like chattel. His eyes looked around wildly until they found Josephine, his mouth twisting into an ugly sneer as Lavellan pulled him along toward the dungeon door.  Solas felt his hands curl into fists as he listened to the Duke spew filth at Josephine about Lavellan, how Josephine “can’t train a savage”, and that the Inquisition would lose all of the support of his allies once they learned how Lavellan had dragged him from his bed.

Lavellan handed the still shouting Duke over to a dungeon guard before she turned and headed into the main hall that was silent as the grave as she marched toward the War Room, her advisors hot on her heels, loudly demanding answers to their questions. Solas doubted that any of them noticed he had also slipped into the War Room.

“Inquisitor, what in the name of the Maker did you think you were doing? You cannot simply kidnap a nobleman!” Josephine cried, her face flushed in panic. Solas had no doubt that her mind was whirling as to how she was going to remedy the situation.

“I did not kidnap him, I took him into custody,” Lavellan replied in an eerie calm. Then from her belt removed a stack of parchment and threw them on to the table. “The Duke knew that my clan was being harassed by bandits and did nothing because he hired them, and when we reached out for his assistance, he paid them to slaughter my clan and claimed he and his men were too late to assist.”

The three advisors silently sifted through the evidence that Lavellan had gathered, correspondence between the Duke and the bandit leader, payment records and the like.

“What exactly is it that you want us to do, Inquisitor?” Leliana asked quietly, though Solas picked up a measure of approval in her tone.

“The bandits and his men have already paid for the part they played, and I would see the Duke pay as well,” Lavellan answered.

“You would judge him?” Cullen wondered.

Lavellan nodded. “I would. I could have easily slit his throat as he slept, but I would have people know of his crimes.”

Josephine threw up her hands in frustration. “You should have let our people handle this! This is precisely why we have agents!”

But Lavellan was unmoved and once again Solas was faced with the thought that she was just as stubbornly proud as she always had been. “Your agents failed my clan once already, I was not going to take the risk of the Duke destroying any evidence we could use against him.”

Lavellan then pushed herself away from the war table and announced, “I will judge the Duke at first light tomorrow.” 


	11. XI

**XI**

 

 The main hall was eerily quiet for the number of people standing about, not that Solas was all that surprised. While judgments were hardly closed affairs, few people chose to linger about, but for the Duke of Wycome’s judgment it seemed that the whole of the keep had crammed themselves into the hall. An uneasy anxiety settled itself over the crowd like fog, permeating through the air and the crowd around Solas began shifting and fidgeting.

The crowd parted, allowing the two Inquisition soldiers escorting the Duke to pass. Lavellan stood from her throne and stepped to the edge of the raised dais as the soldiers pushed the Duke to his knees forcing him to look up at her, and Solas knew the whole thing was a show. Everything from the way she stood above him, to the quiet rage behind her eyes, Elgar’nan’s markings painted dark against her skin -Lavellan was making sure the Duke, and everyone else, knew precisely who was in control of this situation.  

“For judgment today, I present to you the Duke of Wycome,” Josephine began. Solas couldn’t help but notice the tired stress crinkling the corners of the ambassador’s eyes and he wondered if she had gotten any sleep at all. “His crimes… well, you know his crimes –“

Lavellan’s eyes cut to the ambassador. “ _Josephine_. _”_

Josephine sighed and began to regale the gathered crowd with the Duke’s crimes, and the longer she spoke Solas felt the atmosphere change. Anger and outrage moved through the crowd on the Inquisitor’s behalf and he heard a few quiet murmurings calling for the Duke’s head.

“Are you enjoying this farce, Inquisitor?” The Duke spat once Josephine had finished. “I was protecting my lands from your knife-eared savages! You have no authority to judge me! I demand a –“

“You are bound and shackled on your _knees!_ ” Lavellan’s voice boomed over the Duke’s, echoing off the stone. “What makes you think you are in any position to make demands?”

Lavellan took a breath to regain her temper before she continued. “Lady Montilyet has already informed everyone just what kind of man you are, but that is just hearsay,” she said, lazily descending the few steps toward the Duke. Solas watched as she bent forward and took the Duke’s chin in her hand, jerking his face close to hers. “So fret not, my dear Duke, I am going to give you the chance to _show_ them,” Lavellan told him, the timbre of her voice vibrating with disdain.

“A duel? That’s your grand judgment?” The Duke laughed. “How very orlesian.”

A chilling smile spread across Lavellan’s face. “Trial by combat,” she corrected him as she released his face. “Unless you would rather I simply execute you?”

“Will you even face me yourself, or do you not fight your own battles, Inquisitor?”

“Funny. Considering you and your men could not face my clan on their own,” Lavellan shot back. “So of the two of us, who needs others to fight their battles?”

An hour later Solas was gathered outside the sparring ring with the masses of Skyhold watching their Inquisitor fight the Duke of Wycome in unarmed combat. Solas didn’t like it. He didn’t like one bit and if he got the opportunity later, he was going to tell Lavellan exactly what he thought of her _brilliant_ plan. He had seen Lavellan in combat many times now, but seeing her trying to hold her own was vastly different.

And something wasn’t right, she wasn’t fighting as she usually did. She was sloppy, slow, making mistakes that she would have never made in the field. With each blow Lavellan took Solas had to refrain from sending healing magic in her direction, and if the look on Dorian’s face was anything to go by, the Tevinter felt the same.

It happened so quickly that Solas missed it completely. The only thing he was aware of was the Iron Bull shouting “Boss!” and then Lavellan was curled in on herself, on all fours clutching her side. She coughed and blood spattered into the dirt beneath her. The Bull charged into the ring, wrenching the Duke’s arm behind his back, pulling the blood stained knife from his hand. Solas moved to Lavellan, sitting her back as she wiped the blood from her mouth.

“And now you’ve shown your true colors,” Lavellan sneered at the Duke, her lips pulled into a bloody smile.

“Call it off,” Solas demanded.

“No,” Lavellan hissed, pushing away from him and to her feet.

“You need healing!” he insisted. He had no way of knowing just how deeply the Duke’s blade had gone until he examined her, but he had certainly done serious damage considering the amount of blood Lavellan was losing.

“Boss?” the Bull prompted.

“Release him,” she instructed. “And give him back the blade if he feels he needs it so much.”

Reluctantly, the Bull released the Duke, throwing the dagger into the dirt and retreating outside the ring once again. Solas was slower to comply for obvious reasons, but he did, his heart racing and aching as he watched the blood bloom through the fabric of her shirt and trousers. Predictably the Duke scrambled for the dagger.

After that, it was over quickly.

Lavellan beckoned the Duke to attack, and after a moment’s hesitation he did with a shout. Now did Lavellan move with the speed and deadly grace that Solas knew she was capable of, twisting the Duke’s hand away until he dropped the blade. She swung herself up, wrapped her legs around his neck, using the momentum she had gathered to bear him to the ground. The Duke sputtered and kicked, but Lavellan was unrelenting in her hold, tightening her legs and with a sharp twisting jerk, Solas heard the Duke’s neck snap.

Sluggishly, the Inquisitor untangled herself from the Duke’s prostrate body and stood. Without sparing anyone a glance, she walked from the ring where she had handed out her judgment, the awed crowd seeming to move out of her way without thought as she passed. Solas understood their silence – so few of them had ever seen Lavellan in battle, and they had no idea the ruthless efficiency she commanded.

He followed in her wake, back through the main hall and to her quarters where she required his assistance to make it up the stairs. Lavellan was silent as she removed her shirt and sat on the edge of her desk, where Solas could examine the wound.

“You are lucky the blade was not poisoned,” he scowled, pressing his hand to the wound, pulsing healing magic into it.

He expected a snarky retort as she was wont to do any time he scolded her, but when Solas looked up he found that Lavellan’s gaze was a thousand miles away, and tears were beginning to crowd in the corners of her eyes. “ _Lethallan?”_

Lavellan blinked at him, tears racing down her face and blurring the lines of the painted vallaslin. “I don’t have anyone anymore, I don’t have a home,” she whispered. “Everyone who loved me is gone and I… I’ve never felt more alone. I thought if the Duke answered for what he had done that it would satisfy this… festering _thing_ in my chest, but…”

Solas didn’t let her finish, instead he pulled her from the desk and gathered Lavellan in his arms the way he had wanted to do the day she left, pressing her face into the hollow of his shoulder. She tried to resist the tears attempting to claim her, but after a moment she failed and her knees went weak. Solas lowered them to the floor, let her cry and hiccup nonsense into his shirt.

Solas wanted more than anything to tell her that she was wrong. He wanted to tell Lavellan that he loved her, had always loved her, would always love her. He wanted to tell her that her home was with him. Solas wanted to tell her that she was not alone and would never be alone…

He wanted to tell her all these things…

But he didn’t. 


	12. XII

**XII**

 

He had tried, desperately, to keep the truth of everything as far away from her as he could, for as long as he could. He had allowed her to continue to see him and his kind as she wished to see them – powerful, worthy of respect and reverence. The truth was… much, much darker as it always seemed to be. They were power hungry, vengeful, petty… and prideful.

He had fallen so deeply in love with her and if she had come to learn the truth and thought less of him… he wasn't entirely sure he would survive the heartbreak.

But he could not shield her forever not matter how he endeavored to do so.

Andruil was already deep in the throes of her madness from crossing into places she should not have dared enter, threatening to tear down the delicate point upon which their society balanced. Plague and corruption crept its away across her lands and domain, her servants, priests, priestesses and their slaves turned beyond recognition wreaked havoc upon anything they touched. Andruil aspired to things beyond her understanding, beyond what she should have and Mythal ruthlessly cut her down.

She was a priestess of Andruil then, and when he learned what Andruil was doing, that the huntress was playing with powers she had no hope of controlling, he had hidden his beloved away from the corruption that stemmed from everything Andruil touched. Mythal, his only true friend among his kind had warned him about Andruil, advised him to keep his love hidden from her until peace was restored and the darkness she cultivated brought to a heel.

His beloved had never known the true reason he had taken her away.

When that peace finally came, he was hesitant to let her return to her duties at the huntress's temple. But Andruil had been uncharacteristically sedate since her and Mythal's confrontation, but now the huntress made him even more uneasy than she once did. Andruil was never one to hide her nature, fiery and passionate, reckless and even cruel. Now there was an emotionless, cold and calculating stillness to the goddess that chilled his blood. There would be retribution for what Mythal had done to Andruil, of that he had no doubt, now there was only to determine what form it would take.

It came in the form of raging fire and a torrent of blood. Andruil mercilessly hunted her own people, convinced that they had turned against her. The huntress burned her own temples and destroyed her shines, razed her lands to the ground.

It was a miracle that his love had managed to escape the massacre. He found her on her knees before the burning husk of the temple in which she had served, the few bodies that she had managed to drag from the flames laying around her.

He rushed to her, falling to his own knees before her as he took her face in his trembling hands. Her long hair had burned away in the flames, leaving it in short disarray, there was blood soaked deep into what remained of her tattered robes though none of it appeared to be her own. Burns and blisters were raised across her arms and hands from dragging out the bodies, returning to the flames again and again – even with healing there would be permanent scarring. He would make Andruil pay for every one of them.

_Did she hurt you?_ He asked, desperately, eyes wildly flickering over her.

She shook her head mutely, her eyes distant and blank. He knew that she was unlikely to verbally respond, traumatized as she was, so instead he pulled her into his arms and picked her up with the intention of taking her away. But suddenly she struggled, wiggled and tried to get out of his grasp.

_Don't leave them here,_  she croaked out, her voice weak and scratchy from smoke.

He turned to the charred, unrecognizable husks that had once been Andruil's priests. The thought that she had so very nearly been one of them…

_I will come back for them,_ he promised.  _You are my first concern, vhenan. Please, I must get you away from this place._

He took her home, washed the blood and soot from her skin, and healed the burns to the best of his ability. And after, he laid her in the bed that she had shared with him, bid her to sleep and returned to the temple to fulfill the promise he had made.

When he returned home hours later covered in the dirt from his labor, he found her sitting up in the bed waiting for him.  _Why did this happen?_ She demanded.

And so he told her. He told her everything, quietly, shamefully. He revealed to her everything that he had tried to keep hidden from her, the things that those of his kind had hidden from their people – the truth of their natures and what they were. He told her that everything he and his kind did was meant to elevate them alone, leaving those that they had deemed "lesser" at their mercy. He told her that although she was a priestess, that she had chosen to wear Andruil's vallaslin willingly and that it was noticeably different from the slaves', more elegant in its design and lovingly tattooed – she was still nothing more than a slave.

He had expected her to break down, to cry, walk away from him forever…  _anything_  but sit in silence, her expression an unreadable mask. He counted his heart beats, found himself hopelessly praying that she would stay. The pregnant silence twisted his heart with dread, made anxiety knot itself in his stomach as he waited for her to do something.

Finally, after an agonizingly long time she said,  _Take these markings off my face._

_What?_  He breathed, almost relieved.

Now tears sprang to her eyes as the truth of everything he had confessed seemed to crash on her.  _TAKE THESE MARKINGS OFF MY FACE!_ She screeched.  _I WILL NOT BE A SLAVE!_

He did, his hands shaking in relief that she had not run from him screaming. His breath left his lungs when she looked at him again, her face bare of the tattoos he had become familiar with. She was so achingly beautiful that he could not help himself when he drew her face to his and pressed his mouth urgently against hers. He had to convince himself that she was real, here with him and not a burnt, charred corpse that he had buried.

_You are free,_  he murmured against her mouth, his fingers tracing over the angles of her face as though he never had before. That she had not run from him, had not turned him away when she probably should, when it would be safest for her... it was too much for him to bear. But he knew that she was also in more danger for being with him now. Even with the vallaslin removed, Andruil would still see her as one of hers... and the goddess never did like to share.

She looked up at him from under her lashes, her eyes rimmed in red from the tears that she had shed. But they were determined, a fire burning behind her gaze.  _Andruil wasn't alone,_  she told him.  _I know what she plans to do._


	13. XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest I was super nervous about the last chapter, but I'm so glad that everyone liked it!

**XIII**

 

The excursion into The Western Approach proved a trying experience for their entire party. How anything managed to eke out an existence in this desert was entirely beyond Solas. It was so overwhelmingly hot at all hours of the day that it constantly felt like high noon, and in less than an hour all of them were bearing sunburnt cheeks and blinking sweat from their eyes. He found himself continually casting winter spells over their party, only to have the spells turn into a light mist that simply dampened their clothes and became uncomfortable a few minutes later.

They had not been able to stop Erimond from binding the Warden mages to Corypheus, and Solas could see that the magister’s escape weighed heavily on Lavellan. But Solas found that he cared little about Erimond’s escape, confident that they would catch up to him soon enough. Instead, he was more concerned about how Erimond had wrested control of the anchor from Lavellan, and how, for a moment, Solas truly feared that it would collapse on itself like a dying star and swallow them all whole.

His fear was not unfounded either. As Hawke and Stroud tracked Erimond across the Approach, their party retreated to Griffon Wing Keep and sent word for Leliana, Cullen and the rest to meet them out there with all haste, leaving Josephine in charge at Skyhold. While they waited for the war advisors to arrive, their party spent the time helping the troops get the Keep in order and trying to make the area less hostile for the Inquisition to maintain a presence there. Between the varghests, the quillbacks, raiders and Venatori they had their work cut out for them, not to mention the bloody dragon and the darkspawn that the Venatori let out.

The whole excursion was just one headache after another, but Solas kept his attentions solely focused on Lavellan and the anchor. Since the confrontation with Erimond the rifts Lavellan opened in the midst of battle were larger and more powerful, even developing a gravitational pull that drew their enemies screaming toward it. He most definitely couldn’t ignore the pain etched deep across her face whenever she activated the magic scarred into her skin.

He found Lavellan on her tip toes, curled over the astarium in Griffon Wing Keep, her eyebrows knitted together in concentration as she tried to work out the puzzle. She, like the rest of their party and the majority of the soldiers who were not on duty, had stripped out of her heavier articles of clothing, leaving Lavellan in a pair of breeches that ended at the knee and a sleeveless shirt that she had haphazardly cut or torn to reveal her mid-drift. Unable to resist, Solas stopped and admired her, the angles and curves that her body created, the way the moonlight played along her sunburnt shoulders and the silvery scars on her side, the way her muscles shifted as she moved and each ridge of her spine.

He was keenly aware of how desperately he missed her in that moment. In another life Solas would have sidled up behind her, pressed his hands along the curve of her waist, relishing in the softness of her skin as he rounded her stomach and held her back against his chest. He would have nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck, brushed his lips over her pulse, tasting the salt off her skin. She would have laughed, leaned against him –

“Solas?”

He blinked, shaking his head slightly – this was hardly the time or the place. “My apologies, I was just wondering perhaps if you might need help solving that? You seem to be having difficulties.”

“Oh?” she laughed, “That was the expression on your face, was it? You looked as though you were considering devouring me.”

Solas felt his mouth quirk into a smile. She always did see right through him. “Another night, perhaps,” he teased, rejoicing at the blush that deepened the pink sunburn across her cheeks. “May I see your hand?”

Predictably, Lavellan held out her right hand, but Solas decided to humor her, cradling her thin hand in his, raising it to his face and laying a kiss into her palm. “Very funny, _lethallan_. Your _other_ hand, please.”

The playful expression dropped away from her face as she reclaimed her right hand and hesitantly relinquished her left. The action told him that she was not unaware of her anchor’s sudden influx of instability. Lavellan pointedly looked away as Solas examined the anchor. He watched pain flicker across her face as it flared to life under his touch, like calling to like, and the magic that his orb had scarred her with reacting to the brush of his mana.

Whatever Erimond had tried to do had backfired spectacularly. The mark was certainly a bit larger, but there were traces of foreign magic that Solas didn’t recognize, as if the anchor had siphoned magic from Erimond allowing Lavellan to break the control he had briefly stolen. It would explain how Lavellan’s rifts appeared to be more powerful than before, the anchor having taken more magic into itself.

“It’s gotten larger, hasn’t it?” Lavellan whispered.

He pressed his lips together, pressed her hand between both of his. “Yes,” Solas answered, “it seems to have absorbed some of the magic Erimond used to try and control it, and I’m afraid it’s gotten more powerful.”

Lavellan’s hand began to tremble between his and he watched fear flicker behind her eyes. “It has stabilized again,” he assured her, absently rubbing his hand over the back of hers, trying to offer some small comfort. “The pain will fade.”

Lavellan began nodding, but didn’t say anything, and her gaze was very far away as she withdrew her hand and returned to the astarium. Solas was surprised to discover that, yes, it was entirely possible for him to hate himself more. 


	14. XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the reason that updates haven't been very frequent lately is because I am currently without my laptop. I've been having to work from our desktop computer... which I hate with a passion. I hate sitting at a desk and writing, it makes me... antsy, I guess. And I feel like my writing suffers for it. But I NEED to write. 
> 
> Ugh.

Adamant Fortress. Solas wished that he could see the formidable structure as it once had been – a bulwark against the darkness, standing against the chaos. Such things would only be found in the Fade now, he feared, and instead it _was_ chaos, buckling under the weight of the darkness. The ancient stone walls shook underneath their feet, trembling against the Inquisition forces as they broke upon the fortress’s walls like river rapids.

Lavellan moved through the fray with a determination that Solas had never seen in her before, carving her way through the numbers that opposed them as though she were trying to get the battle over with as quickly as possible. Sadly, he understood. The Wardens were heroes throughout Thedas, their order alone had stood against the darkspawn threat for centuries and to see them now reduced to a pawn in Corypheus’s grand scheme… it was not a fate that the Grey Wardens deserved.

She spared those that she could, told them to fall back to safety, the Inquisition was not there for them, after all, but were seeking the one who orchestrated their downfall. The warriors understood, laid down their weapons with thanks, but the mages… whoever they had been before the binding ritual had all but been erased the moment they had shed their blood to bind their demons.

Solas felt a very real, tangible fear slide down his spine when they reached the main courtyard. He could feel the gargantuan demon pressing against the rift that caught the fabric of the Veil like a knot, stretching it nearly to the point of ripping. They had barely made it in time - another few moments later and they would have been facing something far worse than a handful of Pride and Rage demons.

Lavellan’s voice, usually so resonate and sure, was trembling as she begged Clarel not to go through with the ritual. “Please,” she hollered, “the Inquisition is not here for the Wardens and I have spared those that I could! Erimond is manipulating you, _this is exactly what he wants!_ ”

“Anyone else have the feeling this is all about to go tits up?” Hawke muttered.

Solas was actually inclined to agree. The Wardens surrounding them shifted anxiously, and Solas readjusted the hold on his staff out of reflex. They could hear the battle still going on beyond the courtyard, the echoes of war cries, ringing metal, the smell of smoke rising over the walls like a cup ready to overflow. How many of the Inquisition soldiers were out there dying while Lavellan tried to reason with Clarel?

And then, irritated and impetuous, Erimond showed his hand, summoning the corrupted dragon, tipping the scales in the Inquisition’s favor in regards to the Wardens. Clarel turned on Erimond, shouting to her wardens to help Lavellan as she gave chase.

Lavellan barely gave them time to catch their breath before she was bounding after Clarel and Erimond, pushing what remained of her energy into pumping her legs, skidding around corners all the while trying to avoid blasts from the dragon that seemed to be tracking her. Solas briefly wondered if what the dragon was really tracking was the anchor considering that it had not stopped pulsing since their party had stepped into the courtyard.

Erimond had run himself into a dead end, his only escape being a very long way down as they came upon Clarel closing in on him. Everything seemed to happen very slowly from that moment on between Erimond spitting vitriol, Clarel cold in her intent, and then the dragon as it landed and plucked the warden from the ground with its great jaws.

It had blocked their way back into the fortress, back to any kind of relative safety. The dragon closed on them, even as their party took tentative steps away, like mice trying to escape a cat. Solas looked around, saw hard determination in the planes of Lavellan’s face, in her intense gaze. She intended to fight, Solas could practically see her strategy as she formed it… as soon as the dragon would move to snap its jaws at her, Lavellan would dart forward between its legs, trying to find a soft spot.

And she would die. _Again_.

Solas felt that familiar, crushing dread rise inside of him at the thought of seeing Lavellan devoured, or gored, by the dragon. He wasn’t prepared to lose her, not now, not ever.

 _Forgive me_ , he silently pleaded. Solas made his decision.

He summoned his magic, tapped into a power he hadn’t in ages, tried to gather whatever fragments of his ancient power that he had regained. To keep her safe and alive, he was willing to reveal himself for what he was and if Lavellan hated him afterwards… it was better than the alternative. Whatever power he had regained would be enough to take down the dragon, of that Solas was certain, but the state he would be left in… he tried not to think about it.

And then, just as Solas was preparing to cast his spell, there was a great expulsion of magic that ruptured the foundation of the stones beneath their feet. The dragon pitched forward, over their heads where it crashed against the crumbling ledge with a cry of pain that made Solas’s ears ring.

They couldn’t out run the stones as they fell, and it was only a matter of moments before Solas was greeted with the terrifying feeling of weightlessness as the open air embraced him.


End file.
